


I think I'll go to Boston where it's just a different time

by Lost_at_Sea



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: 4x16 fix it, Angst, F/F, This is not a casey/jane fic, but it isn't pro casey either, it's not like super anti casey, no pregnancy jsyk, which i'm not super good at so good luck to us all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28817709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lost_at_Sea/pseuds/Lost_at_Sea
Summary: From this prompt off tumblr: Hello! If you’re taking fic requests, could I request a Rizzles fic where Jane comes to Maura one night after a fight with Casey and they end up kissing and Maura confesses her feelings? But Jane starts to panic and stops Maura and runs out, breaking Maura's heart. Maura sees Casey and Jane together the next day while Jane doesn’t even acknowledge what happened. I love angst! Thanks so much!More notes inside about how this fits in.
Relationships: Maura Isles/Jane Rizzoli
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	I think I'll go to Boston where it's just a different time

**Author's Note:**

> I had to rewatch some bits of season 4 to refresh my memory on the Casey/Jane story as well as to get a bit stronger of a grip on Jane/Maura at that exact time. This is the first chapter of what I imagine to be at least 3. This is placed at the end of 4x16 and instead of the end scene where Jane tells Maura she can’t marry Casey because he isn’t leaving the army and then reveals she is pregnant, this happens! So cannon up until like 90% of the way through 4x16. Unfortunately, to keep it angsty I did extend it to like 5x01 and 5x02 so we will most likely be dealing with Frost’s death. I did like rewatch 4x16-5x02 to try to get myself to keep it canon but since there’s no pregnancy it’s a little off-canon after 4x16. So this is the first part, let me know what you think!

It’s 10 PM in Boston and Jane Rizzoli can feel the day slipping out of her grip. It had been a successful and righteous arrest of Carnahan, but she’d been absolutely exhausted when she entered her apartment. The case had been just soaked in heart-ache and she couldn’t get that out of her chest as she opened a beer and checked her email hoping for a goodnight message from Casey. She had spun the ring around her finger and stared and stared and stared at the message she had actually received. 

It’s 10 PM in Boston which means it’s 7:30 AM in Afghanistan and though she knew it was a long shot she finished her third beer, opened a fourth, and whipped open her phone to press call on a familiar number. 

_“Jane”_ Casey’s voice was soft, and sounded tired, as it usually did, but instead of reassuring her like usual, Jane feels her blood start to simmer. 

_“Casey… what… what is this?”_ she gestures to the email in front of her with her beer even though he can’t see that. 

_“Jane.”_ Casey sighs deeply and Jane has to consciously loosen her grip on her beer bottle before she crushes it in her hand. 

_“I just- this isn’t what we talked about Casey. I was, I was so ready.”_

_“Jane. You’re asking me to give up everything for you, and you won’t even consider doing the same for me?”_ Casey sounds mad himself now, and Jane sets her beer bottle down on the counter and switches which hand her phone is in so she can pace around her apartment. 

_“Casey, I told you I didn’t want to ruin your career, and then you said you didn’t want to ruin mine and then you decided to leave the army. You told me, back when you proposed, that I didn’t have to say yes or no, that we hadn’t figured it all out yet. And my yes it was dependent on us working it out and this… this is unworking it, you know! I-”_ Jane’s voice had started to get into that high-pitched territory that she hated so she cut herself off and went back to her beer.

_“Jane. I never told you that you had to come with me here I asked you to. And you never really even considered it.”_

_“Casey that is not fair.”_

_“No Jane, you know what isn’t fair?”_ Casey snapped across the line and Jane found herself stopped in her new-found pacing, gobsmacked at his tone, _“it isn’t fair that I’m always the one making concessions and fighting for this relationship. As soon as it gets hard you say ‘well it sucks that it isn’t working out’ and move on, and I’m forced to fight for you, for us!”_

_“Casey… you know how important my work is to me and if you left the army you could have any number of jobs helping vets or other similar positions to what you have now, being an army wife… it’s not the same.”_

_“And? So?”_ Casey was obviously struggling to contain an anger that Jane hadn’t really ever seen him profess before. _“Jane. You have never been as invested in this relationship as I have been. I’m not… I’m not saying you haven’t loved me but this has never been a priority for you.”_

 _“Priority!”_ Jane, who had finished the last of her fourth beer, slammed the bottle in the sink where it thankfully did not shatter. _“Casey, we both have insanely busy, unpredictable jobs. And I have never once given you shit about when you had to leave on short notice or not show up at all. Sure, I’ve been sad and I’ve missed you but the idea that I’m not prioritizing you because my work is absolutely insane.”_

 _“Jane!”_ Casey shouted. _“This isn’t all about your work. You’re always hesitating and you never want to just dive in. I have been so ready to be with you and only you and to make you the #1 in my life and you are always dealing with someone else’s stuff and prioritizing Maura’s absent father’s father or canceling our skype dates because you’re too tired or Maura’s had a bad day or you’re out getting ‘morale-boosting drinks’ or god knows what else.”_

 _“Casey! It doesn’t matter. I have never been the kind of woman who was going to make her partner the one and only part of my life, and I will not marry you if it means I have to live on an army base as your little wife. You know how much I would hate that.”_ she sighed deeply. _“I am devastated that this isn’t working out for us but I won’t compromise on this, and if that angers you, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to hurt you but I’m not doing this.”_

 _“Jane, just take some time to think about --”_ Jane promptly hung up on him and threw her phone at her couch where it bounced harmlessly off the cushions. 

She turned around and threw open the cabinets above her sink to pull down the whiskey she stored up there. It was high time to move on to the harder stuff. 

She had just managed to pour herself a drink when her door opened. Whipping around she saw Frankie’s tired face. 

“Hey sorry, do you think you could help me with some stuff?”

“Frankie, I love you, but now’s not a good time.”

“Oh come on, Janie-”

“No. I mean it Frankie, get out.”

“Woah… what’s going on?”

“Frankie,” Jane put down her drink and started shoving at him to get him out the door. “I mean it, get the hell out.”

“Jeeze, ok Jane.” Frankie looked at her weird but proceeded out the door. 

Jane downed her fair share of her glass of whisky and was sitting on her couch by the time Maura opened her door. And when Maura looked in, she saw Jane just sitting there looking at her ring box and the package with Casey’s name on it. 

Maura closed the door quietly and walked slowly over to her, “Jane?” She tucked her purse into the crook of her elbow and stood next to the coffee table. “What are you doing?”

Jane pointed over her shoulder at her laptop with her glass. “Read it.” She sniffed and then wiped her nose with the same hand holding her glass. Maura looked at her in concern and confusion and then walked to the counter where she set down her purse and read the email out loud.

_“I wasn’t expecting this to be so hard. I don’t know who I am if I’m not a soldier. They want me to command a battalion in the Balkans. There’s room for my wife. Please come, Jane. Please.”_

In the meantime Jane had gotten off the couch, walked to the counter, and refilled her glass, pulling the bottle of wine she kept for Maura out of her fridge and opening it. “I’m not going. I’m not going to marry him.”

“I’m so sorry” Maura looked at Jane, heartache written across her face and Jane felt a pang in her own heart so she took a large sip of her drink. 

“Yeah me too. I’m… I’m not going to leave everything to follow him around the world.” She looked down at her glass of whiskey. Maura stayed respectfully silent as she could sense Jane had more to say. “I called him.”

“Oh no. How’d he take it?”

Jane just looked at her and finished off her glass. When she went to pour another, Maura caught her hands across the counter. 

“Ok, well I’m guessing that means he didn’t take it very well.” Still holding her hands, Maura led her over to the couch. “Maybe let's switch to something a little… less intense.” Maura quickly walked back over to the counter, smiling slightly at the wine bottle Jane had opened, bringing it and two glasses back to the couch where Jane had started quietly crying again. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Maura asked as she handed Jane a glass.

“No.” Jane chuckled, sipping at her wine. It was silent for a moment. “He told me I never prioritize our relationship.”

“He what!?”

Jane chuckled slightly, “No, you don’t have to fly over there and punch him, I’ve been thinking maybe he was right. I never really considered going with him. He was ready to give up on his dreams and come here and I never was going to do the same.”

Maura looked at her firmly. “Jane, you never would have been happy being an army wife, and while I understand why he wanted to make that happen, if he knew anything about you, then he knew that and he should never have asked that of you.”

Jane smiled weakly and Maura. 

They spent the next hour or so talking about Casey and Jane and Jane spends half of her time beating herself up and the other half of the time trying not to laugh at how angry Maura is with Casey. It’s nice, she thinks, to have someone so firmly in her corner, hard-won but unending. 

They’ve almost finished the bottle and Jane is definitely going to regret all this mixing of alcohol in the morning, but right now it’s making her feel less and less like her life is falling apart. Or is that the comfort of being right where she wants to be? She can’t quite tell through the haze. 

“Ugggh” Jane sighs, sliding further into the couch and stretching her legs out so her feet are on Maura’s lap on the couch. Maura chuckles and puts her hands on Jane’s ankles, lightly rubbing at the tendons there. They sit there and smile at each other softly for a moment. 

“You know what. I’m done talking about me. Please please tell me I’m not the only one with a sucky love life right now.”

Maura just chuckled and looked down at her hands where they were rubbing at Jane’s insteps. “Well, your brother kissed me in the hallway right before I came in. It was very… forward… he kinda just grabbed me” Maura said shrugging and quirking an eyebrow. 

Jane rockets up into a sitting position, pulling her feet out from under Maura’s hands. 

“I’m sorry… WHAT”

“Oh don’t worry about it, Jane.” Maura laughs a little and scoots closer to Jane and puts her hands on her shoulders to keep her sitting on the couch. “It was really a very small kiss, and while I did nothing to encourage it, it wasn’t actually even that bad.” She smirked slightly.

“Oh, gross! Maura!” Jane reached behind her to grab a pillow off the couch and to smack Maura with it. 

Maura fell backward laughing. “Don’t worry Jane, I’m not planning on an encore performance.”

“I could kill him, what possessed him?”

“Oh I don’t know, he’s been harboring feelings for a while now. I should have been more direct with him.”

“Ew, Maura? ‘Harboring feelings’ what is this a dime novel?”

Maura chuckled lightly, playing with the edge of the pillow which was in her lap. 

“You know when I said I didn’t want to talk about having sex with your brother?”

“AHH! Maura!?--”

“--Well it was because I can’t lie. And it wasn’t the time or place to get into the truth of it all.”

“Yes Maura,” Jane chuckled warmly at Maura, “I know you can’t lie. But I also don’t think I can hear about all of that right now, either.”

“No, Jane, listen.” Maura’s suddenly overly-serious voice caused Jane to sit up straighter and blink a few times to focus her alcohol-soaked brain. “It wasn’t because I didn’t want to talk about… entering an adult relationship with Frankie. It was because if we talked about why I didn’t want to… do that, we’d talk about things I didn’t want to admit.” And Maura’s eyes are starting to tear up and that shoots fear into Jane, even through her alcohol-induced haze.

“Things like what, honey?” She tries for soft but she can hear the panic in her own voice.

“No, I’m sorry, Jane. We shouldn’t talk about this, not right after Casey…”

“Maura, this is obviously weighing on you. Just tell me what’s wrong, hon.” Jane says kindly and it must be that which unfurls Maura’s tongue inexplicably. 

“It’s just… Frankie is not the Rizzoli I think about in that way…”

“Ugh, Tommy? I thought we were done with that, Maura.” Jane nudges her playfully but she can still tell something is off.

“No, Jane. It’s like I said before…” and suddenly Jane is reminded of another night filled with wine after another long day, achingly familiar to this one. “I like Tommy, I like Frankie… but…” And Maura can’t seem to finish her own sentence, but Jane remembers. Of course, Jane remembers.

“But you love me…”

“Yes, exactly!” Maura says earnestly as she scoots closer to Jane on the couch, and she shakes her head like she isn’t really sure where she is or where she’s going. “And… and that’s what I just haven’t been able to talk to you, or Frankie, or Tommy about.” She’s getting closer and Jane isn’t sure why her stomach is dropping down and her heart rate is speeding up. It’s like her body knows something is coming but her brain has absolutely no clue what it is.

“And when Frankie… sauntered up to me… and grabbed me, and kissed me… I just… Jane, I wanted it to be you.” And Maura just stares at her with those big, tear rimmed eyes filled with absolutely nothing but the love Jane can always find in them. 

Neither of them know what happens after that, just that it’s silent and Maura is crying and Jane is wiping the tears off her face because she never wants to see Maura cry and then their foreheads are pressed together and it’s still silent when Jane kisses her. 

It isn’t anything like Maura’s kiss with Frankie. There’s no split lip, or slight stubble, no insistent hands, no one-sided passion, and Maura doesn’t know how she got here but she never wants to not be here. It’s just simple. It’s just right.

And then they stop kissing and Maura’s heart is in her absolute feet. Or, no it isn’t. She knows that her heart will never move from its location in the middle mediastinum until a different ME takes it out of her one day. She knows that if anything this is a change of blood pressure, or a slight palpitation, or any other number of stress-related bodily changes. But she can undoubtedly feel panic setting in. 

But Jane just blinks at her and laughs throatily until it turns into a giggle that’s so unlike her that Maura can’t help but breathe again. Jane just stands and points at the bottle of wine and keeps laughing and then sags tiredly and heads towards her bedroom. Maura follows her after a moment or two, keeping her distance and when she enters Jane’s bedroom she’s already taken her clothes and shoes off and is getting into bed in her underwear and tank top. Maura chuckles worriedly at her and helps her pull the covers over her. 

Jane’s almost asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow but she does mumble “don’t worry about it” to Maura before she fully falls asleep. 

Maura returns to the living room and cleans quietly as tears of absolute terror roll down her face. Once the living room and kitchen are clean of their glasses she grabs her purse, locks the door, and calls a cab to take her home. 

She greets Bass and sinks slowly to the floor, kicking off her shoes and setting her purse down. She pats his shell and holds herself up with her other hand, body curling up around him as she half sits half lays on the cold floor of her house and lets tears fall all over his shell until he finally scoots away from her and she drags herself to bed and somehow falls asleep.

\-------


End file.
